Commentaries on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.
Zigedy highly recommends the Marxist-Leninist website, MLToday.com, where many of his longer articles appear.

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Friday, April 14, 2017

Tutoring Trump

After agreeing that the US attack
upon a Syrian air force base constituted a violation of international law, a
violation of Syrian sovereignty, an Ivy League law professor told NPR that he
believes that the premeditated strike was justified nonetheless. The professor
likened it to running a stop sign or a stop light in an emergency.

This is the level of tortured
hypocrisy to which US intellectual elites have sunk.

Across the corporate media spectrum
similar irresponsible “justifications” dominate the conversation, including
from the center left. Some, like the once discredited, but still indulged,
Brian Williams of MSNBC, border on the crazed, invoking songster Leonard Cohen
to marvel at the “beautiful” cruise missile launches.

Within the two-party political
circle, a similar consensus welcomes or approves the missile attack. The
corporate Republican leadership, including Senate leader McConnell and House
leader Ryan, join the corporate Democratic leaders, Senator Schumer and Senator
Feinstein, in their approval. Senate hawks McCain, Graham, and Rubio, who had
earlier criticisms of Trump, hail the attack. McCain saw Trump’s leadership of
the aggression as “presidential.”

This sounds eerily like the drumbeat
accompanying previous US aggressions against countries that refuse to honor the
imperial playbook. An equally ready consensus emerged with recent US military
violations of sovereignty in the former Yugoslavia, in Iraq, and in Libya, not
to mention numerous uninvited covert actions throughout the world.

The Sales
Effort

Sadly, the US establishment has
succeeded in selling aggression as “humanitarian intervention,” the modern
equivalent of nineteenth-century “civilizing the savages.” As this selling job
has gotten more sophisticated and the perpetrators have grown more successful,
the need for allies has declined. The US used the UN as a cover after the
demise of the Soviet Union; it contrived a “coalition of the willing” to mask
aggression in the Middle East; and it hid behind the NATO shield in recent
years. Today, it acts unilaterally, brazenly.

Making full use of the compliant
corporate media, naive human rights organizations, and corporate and government-funded
NGOs, imperialism relies upon opportune “incidents” that cry out for sympathy
and prompt a call for action.

Of course, provocation is not really
a new ploy. It has been part of the imperialist tool box since the dawn of
empire. The US introduction to contrived provocation coincided with its entry
into imperialist competition: the sinking of the battleship Maine. With the
help of Hearst and Pulitzer, icons of US journalism, the incident “justified”
the US military embarking on a colonial mission against Spain.

More recently, the phony Tonkin Bay
incident notoriously served to gather public opinion behind a massive
escalation of the war against Vietnam.

And of course, there was the “weapons
of mass destruction” hoax that, thanks to the media frenzy generated by Judith
Miller, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, led to war and the
loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.

In the post-Soviet era, “humanitarian
intervention” replaced imperialism’s Cold War strategy of fighting national
liberation under the banner of “anti-Communism.” Today, US imperialism uses a
multi-faceted approach: subversion, covert support for discontented “democrats”
and surrogate “freedom fighters,” and naked intervention.

The corporate media is only too happy
to fan the flames, shamelessly turning national leaders into “brutal dictators”
regardless of the frequency of elections or their apparent legitimacy. That
same media instantly converts religious zealots into righteous democrats and
neo-Nazis into human rights activists. Any country that strengthens its
military against threats of imperialist intervention becomes a threat to its
neighbors or dangerous aggressors. And imperialist military maneuvers or buildups
are merely responses to belligerency. All that is needed beyond the propaganda
campaign is a provocation to spark a policy shift or military adventure.

Strike the
Match!

Two recent events--the death of Kim
Jong-nam and the alleged gas attack on a Syrian village--have disrupted
processes that had promised to lower international tensions, derail the
prospects of further conflict, and disrupt imperialist
plans. One process held out hope that US-DPRK relations would improve, opening
the door to reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. The other offered an early
end to the war devastating Syria and its people.

Both processes were interrupted in a
manner that should generate doubt and suspicion on the part of any reasonable
person. Both processes were thwarted by “incidents” or provocations that were
instantly inflated and characterized by a corporate media that follow a line
uncannily identical with that crafted by imperialism.

In February, Kim Jong-nam died under
suspicious circumstances in an airport in Malaysia. Kim traveled on a DPRK
passport and was purportedly the half-brother of Kim Jong-il, the leader of
DPRK. Immediately, a narrative circulated in the Western press that attributed
the death to agents of the DPRK. Because of the haste in reporting the conspiracy,
parts of the narrative had to be replaced, patched, or modified as questions
arose. No independent investigation was permitted; nor was the DPRK allowed
access or possession of the body of its national until much later. Questions
arose over why security agencies of the ROK were engaged at the onset of the
incident. And clear indications of KCIA invention loomed over the most glaring
discrepancies in the story.

But most telling were the
circumstances. The President of the ROK, Park Geun-hye, an anti-DPRK hardliner
and US puppet, was about to be removed from office because of corruption and
massive demonstrations for her impeachment in response to that corruption.
Waiting in the wings was the likely new leader, an opposition politician known
for his commitment to steps toward reconciliation with the DPRK. Few US
citizens knew of the large southern Korean reconciliation movement because of
the veritable news blackout of anything placing DPRK in a favorable light.

At the same time, a hysterical media
campaign was popularizing the “North Korean military threat” and the US was
rushing its sophisticated THAAD missile system to the ROK, a direct provocation
of the DPRK and the PRC. The US moved quickly to take advantage of Park’s
waning days and the impolitic of removing the missiles once they were there.
The Kim affair conveniently added to the argument that the DPRK could not be
trusted, part of a blatant effort to thwart any attempt at North/South
reconciliation.

More recently, the alleged gas attack
in Syria occurred in the midst of considerable hope that the war would be
coming to a close. Assad and his allies had turned the war against the US,
Salafist, and Turkish-sponsored opposition as well as their mercenaries. The
Trump administration made noises about accepting Assad’s continued governance
in Syria. Peace talks were continuing amidst renewed hopes and there was an air
of optimism about forthcoming talks between the Trump administration and the
Russians.

But since the first of the year, a
campaign had been waging against elements of the foreign policy of the Trump
administration. Charges of unsavory contacts with Russia took on a relentless
public life, spread by political foes and the media, and fueled by carefully
placed leaks and innuendo by the security services. Despite little evidence of
anything out of the ordinary or seriously compromising, the association of
Trump with Russian machinations quickly reached hysterical proportions. What
began as a diversion from the exposed chicanery and electoral failure of the
Democratic Party gathered momentum and transformed into a broad attack on
Trump’s deviations from the ruling class playbook. The Russia-baiting was
served up to discredit Trump’s renegade isolationist, America First policy.
Trump had drifted off the reservation with his hands-off foreign policy, his
live-and-let-live approach to Russia, Syria, and the DPRK.

To get him back on the reservation a
provocation was needed. It was found or contrived with the alleged Syrian
government gas attack on civilians.

The Soft Coup

Whatever really happened in the
village in Syria will likely never be known. Like the death of Kim in Malaysia,
any hope of an objective investigation has passed with the politically charged rush
to judgement on the part of Western leaders and their media shills. Truth was a
victim of opportunity. Both events, as depicted in the Western media, were
better seen as carefully crafted, politically useful theater than as part of
the fabric of reality.

The last glimmer of truth-based
journalism disappeared from the corporate media when the work of the US’s
greatest investigative journalist was exiled. Since 2015, when Seymour Hersh’s
article on Syria could find no US publisher inclined to publish it, US
mainstream international reporting has been universally politically motivated,
tainted by bias, and, frankly, ignorant. Hersh was celebrated when he exposed
the crimes of My Lai or Abu Ghraib, but he is no longer wanted when he dares to
question today’s foreign policy consensus. One finds more truth in celebrity
gossip reporting than in international reporting datelined from a comfortable
foreign city with a media-friendly US embassy available.

The upshot of a lapdog media is the
readiness of media puppies to do their master’s bidding.

Since Trump’s election, the media has
once again served loyally as the instrument of the US ruling class. It should
be no secret that all of the candidates but Trump were carefully vetted by that
same ruling class; while they all played different hands, they recognized the
same rules. Trump did not always play by those rules, he didn’t play nice, and
he had some outlier ideas. And the media has set out to punish him for his
audacity.

With his victory, alarms went off.
Plans were hatched to force Trump back in line. The security services and the
corporate media collaborated to realize those plans. With ruling class fear of
a measured position on Russia, a tale of intrigue and secret plotting was
created out of whole cloth. The old Russian bear-baiting strategy was brought
out of retirement and the game was on!

The war rages in the Trump
administration between those who cling to the isolationist position promised in
Trump’s campaign and those who urge him to return to the reservation and
embrace the ruling class line of belligerence towards Russia and the stoking of
aggression in the Middle East and Asia. Clearly, the purge of Flynn and the
removal of Bannon from the National Security Council paved the way for the
attack on Syria and the saber-rattling in and near the Korean peninsula. For
the moment, the corporate, establishment faction has the upper hand. Son-in-law
Jared Kushner, trusted military advisor H. R. McMaster, and reliable corporate
boss, Gary Cohn, former president and COO of Goldman Sachs, appear to be
steering Trump back to the ruling class mainstream and away from a sane foreign
policy.

The retreat from sanity owes much to
US liberal elites who shamefully stoked and continue to stoke the anti-Russia
hysteria that presses Trump to attack Syria. As the PRC news service, Xinhua,
noted, the attack on Syria was meant to send the message that Trump’s
administration was not “pro-Russia”.

How the battle will conclude is
unsure. Rumors abound that Trump will exile Bannon (and Priebus) and put
Goldman Sach’s Cohn in charge at the White House. That would constitute a solid
victory for the ruling class-- ironically, for the policies of Hillary Clinton.
Given that businessman Trump has no principles-- only ambition-- that is not an
unlikely outcome.

Through the turmoil of the last few
months, a soft coup has been unleashed, a coup meant to bring Trump back in
line with the ruling class foreign policy consensus, an imperialist game plan. In
the waning days of his administration, Barack Obama acknowledged this game
plan. He noted the intense pressures from the ”humanitarian interventionists”
and their dominance among the foreign policy establishment. They don’t wear the
badges “liberal” or “conservative.” Nor do they owe allegiance to “Republican”
or “Democrat.” Rather they represent a ruling class consensus.

While some
leeway in execution is permitted, the goals are non-negotiable. Trump
threatened to modify those goals. He is being schooled in the rules.

3 comments:

The forces bringing Trump back on board with the neo-liberal imperialist agenda are pros and the Bannon foraces are amateurs with far fewer resources, so for now the military-security-industrial complex will wield control over the agenda and democracy will be further threatened.